The story of five CIO entrepreneurs in India
A visit to Zurich in 2007, where the television channels were full of the news of the acquisition of European steel company Corus by Tata Steel, proved to be a turning point for LN Sundarrajan.
Being an ex-CIO, influencing the client is easier for me. Client CXOs acknowledge that I understand the post product-purchase issues better
“I felt deeply inspired by Ratan Tata, who even at an old age was gung-ho about buying companies and introducing disruptive products like Nano. That is when I decided to become an entrepreneur,” he says.
More fuel for the fire came from his elder daughter, who always encouraged him to pursue his entrepreneurial dream. Finally, after 25 years of employment, this former CIO of Holcim and Group CIO of the Aditya Birla Group, opened his consultancy firm, Rewire, on July 4, 2011. Rewire’s 25-member team advises clients on cloud, mobility, HR, and training. Stating that his company acquires one new client every month, Sundarrajan says that they have about ten customers in all, from the financial services, healthcare, and FMCG sectors.
Challenges and future plans
"Addressing the bottom of the pyramid with high customer-expectations and finding employable candidates to fit our approach, are some of the challenges we face today," informs Sundarrajan.
Fast facts
Company name: Rewire
Type of business: IT consultancy
Partners: L Sundarrajan, H Ganapathi, Abhishek Shrivastava, Savita Kirpalani, and Bala Subramaniam
Contact: Write to L Sundarrajan
To tackle these challenges, Rewire takes an assessment break every 50 days and makes appropriate changes before moving ahead. In addition, Sundarrajan makes it a point to meet his clients periodically. This helps him to understand their requirements better and ensures a high quality of service.
Going forward, Rewire plans to hire more people to expand its operations. Sundarrajan sees consumerization of enterprise IT as the next big opportunity for his IT consultancy business.